


Golden Pardon

by Dreamprism



Category: Life Is Strange 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Away (Life is Strange 2), Divorce, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:56:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29839800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreamprism/pseuds/Dreamprism
Summary: Sean, Daniel, and Joan work on small plaster sculptures at Away, but Daniel's questioning of Joan brings new perspective to Sean, leading him to a difficult conversation with Karen.
Kudos: 3





	Golden Pardon

**Author's Note:**

> There is talk about religion in this fic, particularly in the latter 60%. It is in line with Karen's conversation with Sean outside the motel in Episode 4. If that makes you uncomfortable, you may want to skip reading this fic or stop reading once the topic of God comes up. You have been warned.
> 
> But perhaps some of you can relate to this discussion between Karen and Sean. I know I, for one, was happy that Dontnod had non-religious options in Episodes 2 and 3 and that Karen could share her thoughts on society (religion included) in Episode 4. Not every element of every story has to be designed for the largest audience. I'm happy to have created this fic, and that is enough for me even if no one reads it. But I do of course hope some people read it. :)

The Sun shines brightly down on a small community in the Arizona desert. A woman with short blond hair walks from her trailer to that of her companion.

Karen has been living with her children at Away for about a month and a half. While distant at first, they’ve grown closer through their time together.

(K) “Good morning, Joan!”

[That’s pronounced Joe-Anne, not Jone.]

She carries a plate of pancakes in one hand with syrup in the other. Her older boy, Sean, is sure to be pleased.

(J) “Sweetie, you missed morning by about 10 minutes.”

(S) “Are those for us?”

(K) “If you want them…”

Karen places the pancakes on a table next to Joan’s trailer. She looks on as Sean moves 2 pancakes onto a clean plate and drenches them in syrup.

(S) “No hot sauce today?”

Karen laughs.

(K) “No. We need to pick some more up from town.”

Karen looks over at her younger son, Daniel; he’s not reaching for any pancakes.

(D) “Umm… sorry. I’m not hungry.”

(K) “You already fed them, didn’t you?”

(J) “You know no one can resist my waffles… most assuredly not Daniel.”

Joan picks up three small plaster sculptures.

(J) “Here, what do you think of our project from today?”

(D) “Hey, I’m not finished yet!”

Daniel uses his telekinetic power to snatch his sculpture and hide it behind him before Karen can see.

(D) “You’ll see when I’m done.”

Looking at the other two sculptures, Karen is ever-impressed with Joan’s talent - and Sean’s isn’t bad either, though his talent lies more on paper than in 3D projects.

To no one’s surprise, Sean has crafted a figure with the body of a man but the head of a wolf - it stands about 18 centimeters tall and is currently plain white.

(S) “She’s lending us paintbrushes later - so we can finish it up.”

(K) “I think it looks beautiful even now.”

(J) “Imperfect and yet pristine…”

(S) “Yeah… maybe… What about yours, Joan? Are you painting it?”

(J) “You bet your shoes, I am!”

Karen looks at Joan’s sculpture and sees the head of a horse.

(K) “What color horse? Brown, black, pink…?”

(J) “Oh, this is no horse. It’s a NIGHTMARE - complete with a mane of fire.”

(D) “It’s like an EVIL unicorn.”

(K) “Well, I’ll leave you to it then. I’m going to take a walk around the desert. I’ll see you boys back at home by sunset.”

Although Sean has decided not to paint his wolfman sculpture, he stays at Joan’s to finish his pancakes and watch his brother continue making his creation.

(D) “Okay, mom’s gone? Give me all the green you have!”

(S) “Not planning another heist, are you?”

(D) “What? No. I mean green paint. For my Creeper.”

Yes, Daniel considered everything he could craft from a rectangular block of plaster and went with the most rectangular figure of them all - a Minecraft Creeper.

(D) “And I need some black, too. But not yet. I’m going to do the green first.”

(J) “The green bottles are… on that shelf over there. You can use one of those or you could mix them with yellows to make new colors on the palette. You can do it however you want.”

Daniel grabs about 5 bottles of green and looks at Joan, as if waiting for something.

(J) “I can’t read your mind, honey; you’re gonna have to speak up.”

(D) “Well… where are the other paintbrushes? I mean, besides the one you’re using.”

Joan points to the repurposed plastic cup between their seats.

(J) “All right, pick a brush, and begin!”

(D) “Cool! Let’s do this.”

With that, Joan enters a deep concentration as she paints her nightmare horse - from deep black to dark purple hues on its body to various red, orange, and yellow on the mane.

Sean looks over and smiles at the contrast between Daniel’s work and Joan’s. Could Daniel one day be as good as her? Could even Sean? She’s always saying he has talent, but he can’t imagine himself making it to the San Francisco big leagues like her… especially while on the run from the cops.

After 12 minutes of silence, Sean steps up to clean off his now-pancakeless plate. As Sean returns, he catches Daniel asking her a question.

(D) “Hey, Joan… Huhh, I was wondering… why don’t you have hair?”

Sean glares at Daniel, signaling that his question was not very polite. Joan sees Sean’s glare but responds honestly to Daniel.

(J) “Well… I have cancer, kiddo.”

(D) “Aww, I… I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Is it… bad?”

(J) “I don’t know… I fought against it for years, spent weeks in hospitals, taking weird pills… By now, I don’t care. I feel good, you know? So it’s not as bad as it used to be, in a way.”

Daniel listens with concern.

(D) “Yeah, okay… That’s good!”

He cracks a slight smile. Then, looking at the various expressions on Sean’s face, he feels like he has asked something wrong.

(D) “Sorry for asking…”

Joan stops him immediately.

(J) “It’s okay, Daniel, there’s nothing wrong about asking questions! And you deserve to know.”

Sean is stunned at Joan’s response. If this were Claire or Merrill or certainly Lisbeth - heck probably if this were Sean himself when they started their journey - anyone else would’ve been annoyed at Daniel’s questions, but not Joan.

Daniel looks equally stunned.

(D) “I do?”

(J) “You’re a young mind that wants to learn about this wonderful and horrible world you live in. And if I can help you with that just a little bit, then I’ve done my part in your growth. And that goes for you too, Sean.”

(S) “Huh? Me? But I’m like… practically 17…”

(J) “That’s a whale of a lot younger than me…”

(S) “Okay, Joan. Thank you.”

(D) “Yeah, thank you, Joan. You’re like my bestest friend out here. I’m gonna miss you when we go to Mexico.”

(J) “I’ll miss you sweethearts, too.”

Another 5 minutes of silence pass as the duo paint their sculpture and Sean sits peacefully in his own thoughts. Then Daniel breaks the silence with a new question.

(D) “Is God real?”

(J) “Honey, that is one question I cannot answer. But I can tell you what your reverend Lisbeth said about God… you shouldn’t take any of that to be real.”

(D) “I know. Everyone says she used me and stuff, and I still feel bad about that, but how do you know she’s like totally entirely wrong?”

(J) “Kid, you’ve got powers like out of a sci-fi show - that part we know. But as for why or how you got them, the best answer I can give is I don’t know…”

(D) “Well, Lisbeth thought she did know.”

(J) “People are imbued with a lot of strong beliefs as they grow up - and they view the world through that lens. If something new comes along to question their beliefs, they try to fit it into their model. She believed in God, and she believed she was some holy champion for Him on Earth - one of the few Christians to truly understand his Word - like so many other cult leaders believe. When she saw a child with a truly magical power, it seemed nothing but reasonable for her to see it as a sign from Him.”

Sean listens in but can’t hold his tongue anymore.

(S) “But we know better. We weren’t raised with that religious bullshit.”

(D) “Well, we celebrated Christmas, right?”

Sean chuckles.

(S) “Only the most secular Christmas on the planet. You should see all the people on Fox News all pissed at people like us.”

(J) “If they didn’t get to know you, they actually might think you agree with them more than most white people here.”

Daniel is lost by the conservation and goes back to painting his Creeper. He grabs the black paint for the eyes and mouth.

(S) “You mean because we’re… Mexican?”

(J) “To put it bluntly, yeah. Christianity is more widespread and more traditional in Mexican and Mexican American households.”

(S) “Yeah, actually, dad was Catholic. He just didn’t share it with us - not since I was a little kid anyway. I think I might’ve attended like… one year of Sunday school… before we moved to Seattle. But dad never brought us to Church in Seattle.”

(J) “Oh, but he wanted to.”

(S) “Umm… last I checked, you know Karen, not my dad.”

(J) “Let’s be real, Sean. Do you think your father who was raised a devout Catholic and continued to believe it his whole life or your mother who eschewed every social custom was the one who insisted you boys never go to church?”

(D) “Uh, yeah. Dad had a ton of crosses and beads and stuff in his room. And all kinds of books he never showed us. I went in there once even though he told us not to. But I just thought that was weird adult stuff, and I didn’t really get it when I was little.”

(S) “Hey, you’re still little…”

(D) “Well, yeah… and I still don’t really get it…”

Joan finishes her painting. Amazingly, she finished before Daniel even with all her detail.

(D) “That looks awesome!”

(J) “Does it? Maybe… I might make some changes tomorrow. The mane looks so… yellow…”

(S) “It’s beautiful, Joan… not quite as great as my brother’s Creeper, but still the most handsome demon horse I’ve ever seen.”

(D) “I know you’re messing with me, Sean, but… thanks.”

Sean gets up from his chair.

(S) “I’m gonna walk around and find Karen. Catch you later.”

(D) “Hey, don’t tell her about my sculpture! It’s a surprise.”

(S) “I know, dude… I won’t tell her.”

Sean walks to the outskirts of camp and spots Karen in the distance. He jogs until he catches up to her path.

(S) “Whew… I am… spent…”

(K) “And here I thought my son came to join me on a walk. But if you’re too exhausted, I guess I’ll continue on my way…”

Karen is teasing Sean, but Sean’s not quite in the right headspace for that.

(S) “Karen, is it true that dad wanted us in church?”

Karen sighs and stops walking forward. She finds a large rock to sit on and pats the space beside her.

(K) “Did Esteban tell you that?”

(S) “No… no, he never mentioned anything like that at all. It was… well, Joan told me.”

(K) “Ah… that woman, love her as I might, has to be the most brutally honest one I’ve ever met.”

(S) “Even more than you?”

(K) “In some ways, yes. And she’s not afraid of what anyone thinks about her. I truly admire her.”

(S) “So she’s telling the truth? Dad wanted Daniel and I to go to church? Bible school? All that stuff?”

(K) “He did at one point. I think I swayed his mind here and there. And when we got to Seattle and didn’t need to rely on my parents so much, it was even easier to shield you from those influences.”

(S) “But you left us. You left the family. Why wouldn’t he just… start bringing us to church after that? He still went on his own every week.”

(K) “Did you want him to bring you?”

(S) “I don’t know. Not… really. I do think it’s bullshit - same as you do. And after what happened with Daniel, I know what that kind of indoctrination can do to a young mind.”

(K) “Correct. Get them while they’re young. That’s what all the religions do - all the big ones, anyway. Make the youth feel like they were lucky to be brought up in the true religion while all the others were not. Free meals to the needy… but only alongside a message.”

(S) “Yeah, but… I do feel like I missed out on something with dad. If this was important to him, why didn’t he share it with us? Let us decide for ourselves.”

Karen smiles, and it’s almost condescending.

(K) “We don’t ask kids to decide what rules of grammar to use. We don’t let them choose history that feels good or math that they consider valid. It’s only through centuries of academic progress that we’ve been able to develop education as far as we have. It’s still got a long way to go, but proper education is a good thing.”

(S) “Who decides what’s proper?”

(K) “Everyone does, Sean. We all have our own ideas of what’s true and what’s not true. Despite all the effort my parents and other Christians have spent to bring me back into Christianity because they believe they need to save my soul, it’s just not going to work. Sorry to sound like an ass, but their arguments just suck. But could they convince a kid? Yeah. They can and they do.”

(S) “Dang, mom, you sound even more bitter than me.”

(K) “Well, I am bitter. I lost nearly 20 years of my life to religion. I didn’t want you to go through that. I didn’t want you stuck in their golden jail, ignorant of the free world outside. And I couldn’t be more proud of who you’ve become.”

Sean can see Karen’s happiness, but he is still not sure what to think. Is being purposefully raised without religion any “more free” than being raised inside it? And what of Esteban’s faith? He still never got that question answered.

(K) “You want to know why your father didn’t bring you to church, right? Well, don’t be mad at your dad for that. As I told you in Nevada, I wasn’t happy living with you guys in Beaver Creek or in Seattle, and it was bringing the whole family down. I had many conversations with Esteban, and eventually we divorced, and I left to go pursue my own dreams.”

(S) “Yeah, don’t remind me…”

(K) “But there’s something else I didn’t tell you then, Sean. That I wasn’t sure I’d want to tell you because… maybe you’d think even less of me than you did then.”

Sean waits, bracing for whatever Karen has to say.

(K) “I didn’t ask for anything in the divorce. Esteban kept the house, almost all the money, sole parental rights to you boys, everything in his garage, all of our trinkets. But in the contract I made him agree to one thing or else the whole custody agreement was null and void - that he would not bring you to attend church services and events - nothing beyond weddings and funerals anyway - and he couldn’t tell you about this either. Our agreement gave you the skeleton key to so many of the golden jails that my mother and Lisbeth would’ve locked you into - a golden pardon.”

(S) “That’s like… so messed up… it’s like my whole life was just… some kind of set-up. I thought it was me who didn’t believe in religion… but it was you the whole time, pushing your vision of life on me even when you weren’t there.”

(K) “Didn’t you do the same with Daniel? You both talked about your first days on the run. I remember you saying you wanted his innocence preserved as long as you could - you wanted happy memories for him in the forest. But did he want to be innocent or did he want the truth?”

(S) “I don’t know. I should’ve told him sooner, but he was happy in the forest. He needed that good memory… even if it was based on a lie. At least I never left him…”

(K) “Uh, I deserve that. But my point is… what I did to make choices for you and Daniel isn’t much different than when anyone does what they think is best for someone. And you can hate me if you want, but I meant what I said earlier - I’m proud of who you’ve become.”

Sean rolls his eyes.

(S) “Who you made me become.”

Karen corrects him.

(K) “Who I HELPED make you become.”

(S) “Okay, fine. Who you helped make me become.”

Sean and Karen get up from the rock. Sean turns toward Away, while Karen resumes her position on the trail.

(S) “I still think the way you handled everything with Daniel and me was… shitty. It’s going to take more time for me to forgive you, if I ever can.”

(K) “That’s okay. You don’t need to forgive me.”

That’s not what Sean wanted to hear, but he isn’t sure if there’s any response he’d have wanted to hear. And he didn’t really want to get no response either.

(K) “So I’ll see you and Daniel at the trailer this evening?”

(S) “Umm… yeah, we’ll be there.”

It hasn’t been easy to get along with his mother, but Sean has come to understand that she does care about him in her own strange way. And she cares about Daniel too.

Sometime in the next few weeks, he knows he’ll have to leave for Mexico with his brother, and he doesn’t know if they’ll ever see Karen again.

Sean isn’t sure if he can forgive or forget.

But he’d rather spend their remaining time with care and understanding than with bitterness.

**Author's Note:**

> The lines where Daniel picked out a paintbrush, began painting something with Joan, and asked her about her cancer were taken heavily from a sample script for Joan from the Episode 5 Casting Call for Life is Strange 2. The scene in that script included Joan telling Daniel not to be sorry about asking and that he deserved to know. Unfortunately, this scene never made it into the actual game, so I really wanted to put it in a fic sometime. The scene did not include Daniel asking about God.
> 
> I came up with the idea for Sean and Karen's conversation based very loosely on some of my own life experiences with reflection on my upbringing, and while this backstory may be controversial I believe it is plausible and consistent with the game's canon. Since this fic was going to be in Away anyway and I needed some reason for Sean to start the conversation with Karen, I thought mixing the Joan scene with the Karen scene in this one fic would be appropriate.


End file.
